Tuesday, December 07, 2010

El Paso Writer News and more literary, book, and new media news

Jose Cruz Gonzalez play "Tomas and the Library Lady," an adaption of Pat Mora's children book of the same name based on Tomas Rivera will be performed at the end of April 2011 at the Children's Theatre of Charlotte in North Carolina. For into and to read more click here: READ MORE. A small review of Mora's book Gracias-Thanks can be found on the Mrs. Biamont's Blog. READ IT NOW.

Dago Reviewed: The Flowers

See a review of Dagoberto Gilb'sThe Flowers on Isak. "Published in 2008, Dagoberto Gilb’s novel The Flowers explores the well-repeated theme of what it means to become a man. But set against the backdrop of Los Angeles during the Watts Riots, this coming-of-age novel offers a unique and humorous perspective on growing up in America." READ MORE.

Interview with Sheryl Luna

Check out this interview with Sheryl Luna on the Letras Latinas Blog. "My first collection dealt with the El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez as a place. The border was seen as both bridge and barrier. I was interested in the concept of the border and growing up there and having left and returned." READ MORE.

Book review by tatiana de la tierra

Checkout UTEP MFA alumna tatiana de la tierra and her review of The Blessing Next to the Wound: JOURNEYING INTO THE JUNGLE by Hector Aristizábal, a Colombian theater artist, activist and psychologist. Read it now.

A 1960s, Chicano student newspaper gets a revival at the University of Arizona. One of the issues has a story on Ruben Salazar, but see the story about the newspaper's revival (El Coraje). READ IT NOW. Another article has been published focusing on Ruben Salazar's assassination. See Editorial: Hispanic Journalist Slain by LAPD.

Undocumentaries get on Best Books List

UT El Paso Creative Writing professor Rosa Alcala has her book Undocumentaries make the No Tells Blog Best Poetry Books of 2010. READ MORE. Congrads to Profa Alcala!

Octavio Solis musical

Check out this blog post of the South Coast Repertory Theatre on Octavio Solis and his work on a commissioned musical, Cloud Lands, which will be presented during an in-house workshop for the artistic staff on December 10. READ MORE.

Paredes on Texas Ed Funding

"Currently, the state provides the grants on, more or less, a first-come-first-serve basis to students who meet the minimum standard: a needy high school graduate without a felony conviction. Today in Austin, at the Texas Association of Business’ first-ever summit on post-secondary education, Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes proposed a “priority model" for the program that would allow certain students to jump to the front of the line." (Texas Tribune). READ MORE.

Cinco Puntos Press re-released their book on Mexican Kingpin Pablo Acosta. "Poppa, a former El Paso Herald-Post reporter, wrote "Drug Lord: The Life and Death of a Mexican Kingpin," the classic biography of Pablo Acosta, a cocaine and marijuana smuggler in the 1980s based in Ojinaga, Mexico, a border town in northeastern Chihuahua, four hours downstream from El Paso. Poppa interviewed Acosta, plus various law enforcement officials along the Rio Grande, and tapped into official documents and other sources." (El Paso Times). READ MORE.

Troncoso reads at Writing Center

We caught that Rigoberto Gonzalez, Maria Melendez and Sergio Troncoso read from the anthology Camino del Sol: 15 Years of Latina and Latino Writing at The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center in Sleepy Hollow, NY. www.writerscenter.org.

An interesting post about book-buying tendencies by los gachupines, All I Want for Christmas Is... (Wall Street Journal), Spaniards do most of their book shopping right before Christmas (70% of the year's books sales).

Dictator Lit?

Have you heard of Dictator-lit. "...University Press of the Pacific wouldn't send me a review copy (of Kim Jong-il's On Film). It's almost as if they don't want people to know about their catalog of Kim Jong-il texts available in translation. Bizarre." READ MORE.

Frankenstein on display

Mary Shelly's handwritten first draft of Frankenstein is on display. READ MORE. "Do psychologists make better novelists? What happened when one researcher applied his powers of human understanding to the literary form." These questions are asked in Marc Abrams story A novel idea for psychologists.

Reference letters to get into MFA programs

An article on reference letter writing to get into MFA programs. "The most troublesome requests come from marginal cases, smart kids who did very well in college and well in my creative writing classes, but who simply can’t write and don’t belong in an MFA program. " SeeReference Season by on Cocktail Hour.

The Senate Judiciary Committee last week approved the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). This Internet censorship bill would empower the Attorney General to silence websites in the name of copyright enforcement. This dramatic expansion of government power would blacklist domains - a reckless scheme that will undermine global Internet infrastructure and censor legitimate online speech. This bill won't help creators get paid and could hamper artistic innovation and creativity. READ MORE.

Facebook not sharing

"In the last few weeks, Facebook and Google have been engaging in a public tussle over an issue that is near and dear to EFF's heart: data portability. The crux of the issue is that when you sign up for Facebook, you can find your Gmail contacts or invite them to join the social networking service with a few quick clicks. But when you sign up for Google, Facebook prevents you from easily inviting all of your Facebook friends to Google, despite the fact that Facebook makes it easy for users to export their contacts to other services like Yahoo!." READ MORE.

No to Corporate Privacy

EFF and a coalition of public interest groups urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject "privacy" protections for corporations under the Freedom of Information Act - a law that plays a critical role in government transparency." READ MORE.

Damages award in file-sharing lawsuit

A jury has awarded $1.5 million in statutory damages ($62,500 per recording) to the record-label plaintiffs in the first action against an individual accused of illegal file-sharing to make it to the trial stage. READ MORE.

Who We Are

The Pluma Fronteriza newsletter was founded in 1999 to showcases Chicano(a) and Mexicano(a) writers from the El Paso-Las Cruces-Cd. Juarez region, the largest geographic niche in Chicano Literature.

Libros, Libros

PF later gave birth to Libros, Libros, the most up-to-date list of what is currently being published in Raza literature, inside and outside of El Paso, fiction and non-fiction. Libros, Libros not only lists new books, but gives you small descriptions, recent prize winners, and weblinks.

Pluma Fronteriza Blog

Although our blog is still dedicated to updating you on El Paso's writers, we found this would not give us enough juice for daily blog. So our blog is dedicated to updating you on what's new in Chicano Literature. We throw in bit about Latino writers occasionally. Although most of our focus is on Chicano(a) letters, we welcome news by Latino(a) writers as well. We published reviews, pensamientos, ramblings, interviews, chisme, chistes, and a lot more. We give you lists of NEW BOOKS every month, new books by both Chicanos and Latinos, or on Chicano, Latino, or Latin American topics.

Want to contribute

We accept book reviews, articles, or any of the above. Just contact us. We are currently seeking reviews to Chicano(a) titles published in 1980, 1990, and 2000. Reviews of new books are always accepted and either Chicano(a) or Latino(a) titles.